Just over three years ago I wrote a piece for the <em>Herald</em> called “<a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-battle-of-the-papal-biographers/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">The Battle of the Papal Biographers</mark></a>” (March 2021). In it I noted that since 2013 there had been at least eight books written about Pope Francis in English, with others on the way. About one a year seems a pretty impressive run rate. Many authors have been complimentary about Pope Francis and his priorities; Christopher Lamb, Austen Ivereigh, Paul Vallely, Jimmy Burns and John Cornwell among them. Others have taken a more critical view; Henry Sire’s <em><a href="https://catholicherald.co.uk/the-dictator-pope-a-mixture-of-hearsay-and-insight/?swcfpc=1"><mark style="background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)" class="has-inline-color has-vivid-cyan-blue-color">The Dictator Pope</mark></a></em> of 2017 is a significant outlier which, although anomalous, deserves to be reckoned with alongside the rest.
The cogs of the book-machine have continued to turn; in 2024 the latest offering is by the Pope himself, in collaboration with the Italian journalist Fabio Marchese Ragona, a Vaticanista who has clearly been given considerable access to Pope Francis’s thoughts. Ragona explains that <em>Life: My Story Through History</em>, is “born with the aim of narrating history through one person’s story: the most significant events of the 20th century and the first decades of the 21st in the voice of a special witness, Pope Francis, who has very willingly agreed to look back on his own life through the events that have left a mark on all humanity”. It is an ambitious and no doubt daunting exercise.
People have always wanted to know about the lives of the popes, from the early<em> Liber Pontificalis</em> (which was held to contain the biographies of St Peter and his successors up to the 15th century), to doorstopper works like Giacomo Martina SJ’s <em>Pius IX</em> or St John XXIII’s <em>Journal of a Soul</em>. There are sundry books by George Weigel and others on St John Paul II; Peter Seewald leads the field on Benedict XVI with his magisterial double-volume biography and more besides. Pius XII seems still to be stuck in a game of literary tennis between his detractors and supporters over his actions (or lack of them, depending on who stands where) in the Second World War.
The list goes on, but Ragona’s contribution is markedly different from anything that has gone before. He pinpoints significant moments in history and invites Pope Francis to reflect on them, which gives readers a powerful sense of entry into his interior thoughts down the decades. That said, as he explains: “The pontiff’s own voice, in his memories, alternates in each chapter with that of a narrator, who reconstructs selected moments in the everyday life of the future Pope Francis, adding a few details suggestive of the period to set the historical scene and put the latter’s words into context.” This eclectic approach, while dramatic, introduces a hint of romance that readers may need to navigate carefully.
It doesn’t scupper the book’s impact, but it does take some getting used to. It is very good to learn more about Pope Francis’s childhood, because as with any subject of a biography it is particularly illuminating. We learn his parents’ names – Mario and Regina – which immediately bring him humanly closer to the readers. In one vignette, which may or may not be based in absolute reality, for it is provided by the narrator mentioned above, Mama Bergoglio flies into a rage about the wickedness of Adolf Hitler. It sets the scene for the Pope to reflect, 80 years later, that he has “never come to terms” with the Nazi agenda, which “has always caused me pain inside”.
This does not come as a surprise; it would certainly have been a startling scoop if Pope Francis had said anything different. And so it goes on, in similar style: narration and reflection, from the Second World War and the Holocaust to Hiroshima and the Cold War; through the moon landings, Argentinian political history, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the coming into being of the European Union. A chapter called “The Hand of God” is absolutely about Diego Maradona’s controversial goal against England in 1986. Years later, when Maradona visited the Vatican, the football-fan pontiff recalls that he couldn’t resist a bit of mischief: “I asked him, jokingly, ‘So, which is the guilty hand?’”
This is one of many endearing <em>mises en scène</em>; but Pope Francis doesn’t waste an opportunity to end on a serious note: “Sports can give young people in difficult circumstances a safety valve that helps them overcome tension by sending them outside for a good kickabout.” The Maradona story quickly develops into an exposition on the challenges facing sport in the present day: “It is true that nowadays there are more commercial aspects to competitive and professional sports, such as sponsors, but this is not a bad thing if done in moderation and ethically. What is important is that the perverse logic of money, which has nothing to do with the spirit of sports, should not take precedence.”
Pope Francis moves on to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 – surely that generation’s Kennedy moment – before talking about the financial crisis that followed. Next comes the resignation of Benedict XVI and his own election to the See of Peter. Thereafter a slight change of tack emerges, and the closing chapters are perhaps the most interesting of all. “Pope Benedict took the opportunity to affirm his promise of unconditional reverence for and obedience to the new pope … his position as pope emeritus has been exploited for ideological and political ends by unscrupulous people … who may have prioritised their own interests and guarded their turf while underestimating the risk of a dramatic split within the Church.”
Later, Pope Francis criticises those who “create bad feeling within the Church and disorientation among the faithful”, and turns to his regular <em>bête noire</em> of “clericalism”, which he believes creates distance between priests and people. “These attitudes have driven the faithful away. It is therefore important to preserve and promote the faith by placing ourselves close to the people, leaving our embroidery, frills and lace cuffs in the closet and concentrating instead on the Christian message of compassion and closeness.” I’ve never quite understood how closeness to the people and dignified liturgical vesture are mutually exclusive, but then only one of us is God’s vicegerent on earth, and it certainly isn’t me.
Alongside this, however, sit a number of important clarifications. The idea that nuns and other laypeople might have a vote in the next conclave is “fantasy”. On the question of same-sex marriage: “We do not have the power to change the sacraments created by the Lord. Marriage is one of the seven sacraments and provides only for the union of a man and a woman. Leave well alone.” Pope Francis also cites his own <em>Amoris Laetitia</em>: “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.” He believes that “the pope’s ministry is <em>ad vitam</em>, for life, and I therefore see no justification for giving it up”.
This is a book that will delight many and annoy others. Some of its corners are really very beautiful indeed, and others are importantly candid – particularly a renewed apology to victims of clerical abuse. At the same time, anyone seeking clear answers about the “new Magisterium”, or the reopening of the liturgy wars, will be disappointed. Meanwhile, only someone who had spent the last few years living under a rock could possibly swallow Pope Francis’s insistence that “thanks be to God, I enjoy good health”. His last line speaks volumes: “I ask this of you: please don’t forget to pray for me! For, not against!” It is a totally lucid moment of self-awareness as this papacy now begins to enter its closing phase.
